Redemption
by Agent-Emma-Coulson
Summary: hello there, this is a short story about Emma Coulson and her father, Agent Phil Coulson, reconnecting with each other, and starting to sort out the past between them. Better than it sounds. I do not own Julianne, Kevin, Rey or Orion or Phil Coulson. I do own Emma, Annaley and Faro... and anyone else I've made up xD Redemption is a tie-in to The Demon and the Half-Angel.


Redemption

Ever since SHIELD fell Emma has been at a loss of what to do. At first, she had hidden herself away in her room at the institute, this lasted for a week or so until she had been literally dragged out of her room by Logan for some "intensive training" which basically consisted of getting her ass handed to her.

After that she had started working furiously to scrub her file from the internet, a hard effort but she managed to remove most of it, although many people had read it by this time.

Although Emma deemed herself separated from SHIELD, she knew she would never truly leave them behind, that's why she spent the next month looking for other agents that may have survived Hydra's takeover. She was constantly leaving the institute and this had prompted Xavier to investigate what she was doing, everyone at the mansion had looked at at least one of SHIELDS files by now so he had a pretty good idea so far. Even so, Emma said nothing to him, and kicked him out of her mind when he tried to get in. This made Emma leave the institute for good, she moved into her Mothers apartment, a large studio like apartment that her mother left to her.

She set up her base of operations there, using the cover to her friends that she was killing, sometimes saving, people for money. She never told anyone about what she was actually doing, not even her boyfriend, Orion. Weeks passed with varying degrees of success. Sometimes she managed to save a decent sized group of agents, other times she was lucky if she saved one agent.

One day, after a distressing confrontation with her friends: Kevin, Rey and Julianne, Emma had received a message from Captain America and even though she was injured from the confrontation, Emma had snuck out of the institute, without a word to her friends.

The message that the Captain had sent her had referenced to her father, Agent Phil Coulson. She hated her father deeply for everything that he had put her though as she was growing up, But she hated fury so much more for allowing it to happen. The Captain had said that everything she knew was a lie, and had then given her co-ordinants for her to meet safely with her father to talk.

Although Emma hated her father with good reason, she decided to give cap a chance. She didn't know how he knew that her father was alive, she was sure that he hadn't known before hydra revealed themselves. Even so, she left the institute and headed to her apartment. She dressed warmly and left pretty quickly, deciding to fly to the co-ordinants as a chance to spread her wings.

A day passed till she reached her destination, and she slept only a little, too nervous to sleep much more than a few hours. When she reached her destination she circled above it, just doing a scan for any danger. It appeared to be a ghost town, though that didn't really surprise her, she was in the middle of nowhere after all. After she landed she waited outside a saloon-type building, complete with the doors that looked like she'd just walked out of a western movie. Emma didn't count how long she waited there for, it felt like hours when she finally saw a figure moving towards her. It was hard to tell who it was as it had started snowing a while ago.

As the person got closer and closer Emma's hand inched down towards her backup gun that was tucked inside her boot, not the safest place but it was always good to have a spare in her mind. When the person was close enough, he stood right in front of her, and Emma could instantly tell it was her father, he had a specific brainwave that she had become used to fearing over the years. Emma kept her hand wrapped around the gun in her boot, staring at her father with all the built up anger and hate am that she had for him, and Emma could tell this affected him as he shifted uncomfortably from the intensity of her stare, people had always said that Emma's eyes had a piece of hell in them, and that she could make anyone feel uncomfortable when she unleashed that stare.

When her father started talking she listened intently, her face growing paler with every word. She couldn't believe what he was telling her, it simply hurt too much... But... It did make sense. He told her how soon before her birth he was sent away on a deep cover mission by the board of directors, that they had replaced him and Fury with a life model decoys to give her a harsh upbringing, they were hoping to make her the perfect soldier. The board of directors did all they could to ensure this happened, including the killing of her mother.

However they did not count on Emma being a mutant, or Clint and Natasha taking such an interest in Emma. And even though they took measures to restrain contact with the duo of assassins and manipulate her power, they had started to get sloppy. As Emma had shown more and more promise as a soldier and weapon they had become lax in their control of keeping Phil and Emma apart, which explained to her why her father appears warmer towards her than most times, including the times he tried to hug her when she was 15, she always pushed him away though, she was too scared of him and neither knew what the board of directors had done.

After about an hour of talking Phil slowly walked closer and sat down next to Emma on the steps to the saloon-type building. They sat there in silence, Emma trying to wrap her head around all this information. As they sat there the snow cleared up, letting them see each other. Both their faces were bruised in some places, but there was an ... Acceptance in their eyes, an acceptance of the story and of each other and even though Emma's eyes were watery with unshed tears, she remained sitting still, and not saying anything.

After a few more minutes of silence a tear fell, then another, and another. Though Emma did not notice it happening, she almost never noticed herself crying anymore. But Phil noticed, and he slowly lifted an arm and wrapped it around his daughter, pulling her close and hugging her tightly.

Now don't get me wrong, neither of them was sappy, but the hug felt long overdue though rather awkward, it wasn't long before Emma closed her eyes, the tears starting to fall faster as her father squeezed her, a few tears of his own falling. Now usually Emma would never trust the words of anyone without proof, but she had discretely gone into his mind as he had been talking, she had felt the truth coming from him, and to her, that was all the proof she needed to accept his wild story.

Hours had passed since their first meeting but eventually all good things have to come to an end. Phil had offered a place among his team but Emma declined, stating that she didn't want to intrude. They had exchanged secure contact information, and information on any SHIELD agents they knew about that were safe. Phil had hugged his daughter tightly one more time before leaving with his team, promising to contact Emma soon. And she had watched as they left, too stunned to do much else. She ended up staying in the ghost town for another day, able to find a secure and warm building to sleep in, and hadn't given a thought to going home just yet. Maybe now some of her nightmares would cease? Maybe now she could be happy? She forced those questions away as she settled down in the building, wrapped in many blankets. She fell asleep quickly, a small smile on her face from the days events.


End file.
